Multi-client LCA management for consultants: workspaces, portfolio and bring-your-own-database

A single-product manufacturer's LCA problem is methodological; a consulting office's problem is operational. Ten clients, multiple projects each, different verification timelines, different data confidentiality agreements — and above all, one client's data must never be visible to another. With Excel and desktop LCA tools this collapses into chaos with version numbers in file names. What a multi-tenant platform gives the consultant is precisely that chaos resolved by architecture.

Company and workspace: two layers of isolation

In clca every client lives as a separate company; within a company, projects divide into workspaces — by product group, plant or project phase. Access is granted separately at both layers: your client's R&D team sees its own workspace, and the junior consultant on your team enters only the companies they are assigned to. Preventing data leakage rests on the permission model, not on user discipline.

The portfolio view: forty projects on one screen

Consultant portfolio management gathers the state of projects across all clients into a single view: which project is in inventory, which is in verification, which EPD's validity is approaching expiry. EPDs are valid for five years — a portfolio of twenty EPDs averages four renewals a year, and missing a renewal means the client's tender document goes invalid. The portfolio view turns that calendar into something the system remembers.

Bring your own database: data sovereignty

Some clients — corporate procurement and defence suppliers in particular — contractually require their data to sit on their own infrastructure. In the BYODB (bring-your-own-database) model, the client's project data lives on the client's own database server; the platform connects to it but does not hold the data in its shared pool. For the consultant this is an answer to "where exactly is our data?" that can be attached to the contract.

Real-time co-editing and the API

Inventory collection is a process where the consultant and the client's plant engineer look at the same table. Real-time co-editing removes the "I emailed you the Excel, check v7" loop: both sides see and edit the same inventory simultaneously. API keys make recurring work programmatic — pulling monthly production data from the client's ERP, or streaming GWP results across the portfolio into a reporting dashboard.

• A separate company per client — cross-visibility architecturally closed
• Workspace-level permissions — team members enter only assigned areas
• Portfolio dashboard — status, verification stage and EPD renewal calendar
• BYODB — for clients with contractual data-sovereignty requirements
• API keys — ERP integration and bulk reporting